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Turning wonky waste fruit into profit

Young entrepreneur’s winning idea wins competition
A 27 year old product design student has won a competition run by Shell for an innovative way to reduce CO2 emissions.

The Soil Association claims that up to 40% of fresh produce doesn’t make it to supermarket shelves simply because it is misshapen.

Giuseppe Baidoo’s company OOZE Drinks take wonky fruit destined for the dustbin and turn it into yummy drinks.

After realizing the injustice of the global food system and a common passion for sustainability, Giuseppe and his two business partners who met at Barking & Dagenham College where they all studied product design, started to think about innovative ways to reduce food waste.

Giuseppe explains: “In July 2016 we founded OOZE Drinks, a sustainable company with the aim of reducing food waste by saving misshapen and surplus fruits and transforming them into sustainable drinks. These perfectly edible produce are wasted just because they look different in shape.

“We began our journey by saving unharvested and unsold fruits from wholesale markets and farmers across London.”

On winning the Shell Livewire competition and the £5000 in funding which came with the accolade, Giuseppe says: “I am so excited and happy about this achievement, this was a national competition with so many good candidates. Coming out as winners in the whole UK means that our idea and product clearly has great potential. Hopefully, the Shell Livewire competition will give us more exposure, so that we can connect with people who will help push us in the right direction.

“The £5000 funding from Shell will allow us to improve the efficiency of our business. Right now we started stocking our product into local stores; the funding will give us a huge boost."

“We have a big dream - to have our sustainable drinks distributed all over the UK the rest of the world. Winning this competition has given us even more confidence that we can achieve our goal.”

In recent months all of the major supermarket chains are pushing ‘wonky veg’ in a bid to reduce the shocking volume for wasted produce and as Brexit nears, EU rules governing the appearance of fruit and vegetables could be repealed, leading to the return of wonky fruit and vegetables to supermarket shelves.